Can anyone explain the logic of concurrent sentencing for crimes?
For example: a man commits murder, he also attempts to murder someone else the same night. He is convicted of second degree murder and AWDWWITKISI. He receives two sentences for jail time to be served concurrently. What is the logic of this? Isn’t he essentially getting a “free pass” for his second crime since he would be serving the same amount of time had he just been convicted of second degree murder?
Well, if one of them is voided for some reason then he’d still stay in jail for the other, at least under your scenario where they are definitely two separate crimes.
Serving two sentences back to back might seem too harsh yet they may not want to leave the possibility that he’ll totally get off.
It’s a combination of judicial/prosecutorial convenience and views about just punishment. If you try to track down the common law origins of the practice, you end up in some very weird cases that look very little like the modern sentencing system. In essence, judges around the turn of the twentieth century created it out of whole cloth to protect criminal judgments from review.
The big benefit to judges and prosecutors is that it creates multiple independent justifications for a single sentence, which makes the sentence more likely to be upheld, and supports everyone’s interest in the finality of the judgment.
On the punishment front, the notion is that stacking of consecutive sentences doesn’t always get the right outcome from the perspectives of punishment, deterrence, and rehabilitation. If, for example, we think 2 years in prison is enough to disabuse you of the notion that lying on your taxes is a good idea, then it doesn’t really matter if you serve such sentences consecutively or not.
I read a great law review article about the history once. I’ll try to find it.
Thank you for the responses Ludovic and Richard Parker.
I believe I understand each of your points, but I have a few questions.
How would that be different then consecutive sentencing? As long as they are two separate crimes, I don’t see how the sentencing effects the outcome if either one is voided.
I understand the idea behind it for “white collar” crimes when sentencing is used as a deterrent, but in the cases of violent crime I’m still a little fuzzy on the logic.
Though I’m sure very few criminals take sentencing into consideration during their crimes, it would seem that if you knew you could serve the same amount of jail time for murder as murder + attempted murder + resisting arrest + grand theft auto + bribery then you might as well go for the whole shebang. Seems counter intuitive.
You’re correct that concurrent sentences can lead to perverse incentives. If you ever rob a bank, make sure you rob like 10 in the same day, because the incremental increase in your potential reward is worth more than the incremental increase in your likely sentence.
The issue is that sentencing has multiple goals that apply to all kinds of crime, from white collar to blood-soaked undershirt. Punishment, deterrence, and rehabilitation are just a few. And those goals are often in tension. A sentence sufficient to deter may be insufficient to punish. Or a sentence sufficient to punish might remove hope of rehabilitation.
The notion is that a judge should choose a sentence that appropriately balances these goals based on the facts in front of him but in a way that treat everyone equally. It’s a tough job! Concurrent sentencing is one way to control the length of the sentence so that it more efficiently captures each goal of sentencing. (And, as I and ludovic said before, it’s a way to insulate decision from appellate review since if the sentences are all concurrent, you’d have to get every count overturned for it to matter.)